


right kind of masochist

by fealle



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Morbid, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 20:24:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2242347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fealle/pseuds/fealle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"My grief is personal," Erwin replies calmly. "It’s nobody’s business how I wish to be vulnerable in my own time."</p>
            </blockquote>





	right kind of masochist

Levi’s death was followed by a quiet funeral attended by the remaining Survey Corps, and one military police -- Nile, who was there by Erwin’s invitation, and subsequently his protection. He was smart enough not to wear his uniform or anything that will identify him as one of them, and for that, Erwin was thankful, but his face has been long enough out in the public for everyone to know. Regardless of how much the soldiers respect Erwin, there’s an anger dangerously bubbling at the surface of calm that they exude long enough for anyone to make the appearance of mourning. Erwin knows it’s an appearance, because the real work is in what’s left at the wake of grief: a seemingly inexhaustible anger that was aided by the increasing desperation of their situation, and the man that Levi had been to his soldiers that those who remained admired. Nile had maintained a stony face throughout the ceremony and to everyone’s relief, did not talk at all. Not like he wanted to.

His body was carried by six soldiers, one of them was Erwin, the other Hange, in front of him. Behind him was Mikasa Ackerman, who was bearing the uneven weight of the coffin in quiet pain. On the other side, there was Jean Kirstein, whose eyes were red and bloodshot but nevertheless his face was dry; Armin, who was barely himself and yet determined more than ever to walk, breathe -- anything that can provide him the impetus to kill, and then Sasha. Connie had volunteered to dig the grave. He said, with a hollow laugh, that he’s watched his parents die anyway, might as well.

Erwin doesn’t remember much of it after. Grief was a terrible thing like that, all-encompassing, absolute in its cruelty to allow the mind to forget. And yet: it was the only way to move forward, to be able to say, “we will continue to fight” despite their loss. It was theirs, as much as it was his, after all. He had no place to shoulder Levi’s death as a personal thing, and it wasn’t too far to say that in the course of the evening as he washed the dirt off his hands he knew, more than ever, the importance of using Levi’s death as a strategic means to motivate the others without making him into martyr -- that, he felt, would be disingenious, but there was nothing wrong in reminding the people that now, more than ever, does humanity need them. In Levi’s most insecure moments he always said that he never knew how things would turn out, only that he trusts that he himself would do what is right when the situation called for it. That kind of faith was unshakeable, and certainly it was the kind of faith that Erwin had always tried to impart to his soldiers, but Levi knew them in ways that he didn’t, and that was the hardest part. Still, Erwin reasoned, wiping his hands in a white towel as carefully and thoroughly as Levi had taught him, a lifetime ago, still there is always the chance that one can use a name until blood is extracted from its memory. Even animals knew how to move from the sight of blood. And even the noblest of humans will stop at the smell of it. Only blood changes things.

 

*

 

He pens the obituary, which ends a lot more personal than he’d intended it to be. Erwin calculates its tone with the current climate of the city, and decides that it wasn’t a bad thing to show to the people after all. There is another article he writes which was an attack to the city, specifically to those who rule it, that he pens with the help of Hange, which was a lot more cutting in its words. It was highly possible that it wasn’t going to be published; however, the point of the exercise is that it exists and has been put into words. Everything else that the Survey Corps from now on is distilled anger and a drive to survive.

Hange peers closely at his face as he seals the envelopes with wax. “You don’t look too good.”

"None of us do," he replies calmly. "If you’re going to ask me if I’ve mourned -- the answer to that is no."

Hange sighs. She takes the envelope from Erwin’s hands and addresses it to the papers for delivery. “Erwin. That’s dangerous. I mean it’s productive, and if anyone can turn grief into an energy source, it’s you, but still. It’s healthy to grieve. Cry out, Commander.”

He rests his arm on the table, leaning his chin on his palm as he watches her. “I don’t mean to insult anyone in not doing so.”

"I know you don’t. People grieve in different ways." Hange blows gently over the ink, waiting for it to dry. "Some people cry. Some people lose their shit. Point is, it’s important that it happens to the person who lost something, or someone. It’s the normal course of human behaviour and denying it exists is probably unhealthy. You’re getting the job done, though, so I’ll applaud you for that, but as a friend -- "

"I understand." Erwin sighs. His coffee, long cold on his desk, has remained untouched for the longest while; he makes a face when he drinks it, swirling the liquid in his cup after. A lifetime ago Levi would sit across from him and insult his tastebuds for surredering them to coffee and not making the switch to tea. Erwin had reasoned that tea had no effect to him, but to no avail. He remembers these things, and somehow they don’t seem to make his work move faster than he wanted it to. "I haven’t had the time. I thought that acknowledging his loss by attending to my duties more fervently -- "

Hange laughs at him. “You fucking prick, can’t you drop that face to me?”

And Erwin smiles.

"All i’m saying is that …. I have been working too long, and have ignored my personal needs, in the assumption that the world can never go on without Erwin Smith. That was incredibly selfish of me, and I apologize for it."

"You can stop the self-flagellation after saying your full name," she replies to him, amused. "Take a day off. You know -- it’s not for me to tell you how you should grieve, but I imagine that just dissecting your work again and again isn’t going to be productive for anyone …. You can only prepare for the future so much."

He drinks the remainder of his coffee for the night, and Hange gives him a pat on the shoulder as she blows the candle and walks out of his office. In the dark, Erwin pulls a cigarette case from a lower drawer and lights it up. Inhale, exhale, allows the smoke to billow around him as he watches the wind move through the trees and the stars map out their places in the sky, and still: he has over a thousand men and women dead, most of them spur-of-the-moment recruits, lost in the fields and vast stretches of green under the golden sun. He takes the time to trace the constellations he can see from the window in his office, and still: his special operations squad gone, his captain dead, the weight of his strength resting on the shoulders of Mikasa Ackerman, who had shadowed him completely during the mission; eager to prove herself to be capable, and probably would be -- she was young, and she was bright, and she was hopeful, and that’s more than enough. Nowadays you can’t have enough of hope, people seem to suck it dry out of everyone who comes back from the outside world alive. The smoke burns his eyes, makes them water, and still: he remembers a week -- a month -- a year -- a lifetime ago -- when Levi had leaned against this very window, watching him and telling him that he was smoking too much, and he should probably stop doing that shit because smoking affects 3dmg performance, plus a whole host of litanies that Erwin will never hear again, and Erwin smiles in remembering.

"It’s just one cigarette," he says to no-one in particular, still smiling. In the dark, he feels like he’s being judged. And still: a man is dead lying six feet underground where he hated, a prison too small for his wings, and from the moment he saw him to the time he was sitting in front of the window it was difficult to judge how much more he still needs to go in order to fight -- or to see this fight end with his own eyes. And still ….

 

*

 

It’s an exhausting trek towards his room. Or rather: it has always been exhausting to walk to his room at the end of the day, but even more so now. It’s not that he hasn’t been able to mourn, it’s just that he doesn’t know how to do it in a way that will be short, efficient, and utilitarian. Everything that is about grief is nothing that he hasn’t encountered, but the loss was personal, this time, and somehow that makes it difficult for him to even consider lying down to sleep. His neck hurts. His shoulders hurt. His legs hurt from holding him up. His whole body hurts.

He lay on his bed for a while, watching and tracing the memory of the ceiling with a listless stare. Levi used to sleep beside him, right there, and Erwin moves as his fingers trace a form on the side of his small bed, where he imagines his ghost occupied when he was there, for a minute; and then, always at the first sight of the sun through the blinds, he was gone. He did not hold that against him and never had, but sometimes the loneliness touches him and he feels like a raw nerve. He imagines that over the folds of his pillows his hair would be fanned over the sheet, and he watches him breathe evenly in sleep, touching the nape of his neck, and down his spine, where now his fingers touched nothing but air.

It wasn’t that grief wasn’t productive. Far from it. Surely there will be an outcry, another inquiry that he’ll have to send Moblit or someone else to address the issue of why there is so much work to be done for the sake of humanity and why there isn’t a lot of work that’s being done for the sake of humanity. There are other letters to write and people’s names to be known as the letters are delivered and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that he doesn’t remember their names. There is a gap in his mind the way that he remembers them but not much about the end of the funeral, where all he remembers are tears, and perhaps that’s why he doesn’t want to grieve: there is no shame in admitting he had lost his brightest, but it seems like a waste to imagine him only at the moment of crying. It was a myopic look; an invitation to view humanity at the level of its wounds. If he considers all the things that he’s done so far and compare it to the amount of work he usually does then he’ll have to concede the fact that this level of grief had been unusually productive for him in that his mind continues to come with ways to quicken the heart whenever needed to.

Still, there is a difference between knowing what is right for humanity and what is right for himself, and one does not necessarily include the other, which is why he was left tracing ghosts on the side of his bed.

 

*

 

In the morning, he is invited to lunch by Nile and Mary, and he accepts. He had promised Hange he would take care of himself, and he intends to make do with this promise. He smiles ruefully at Jean when he announces that his carriage was ready, and he lays his hand on his shoulder and tells him, “make sure she doesn’t blow up this place,” blandly, before he leaves, to which Jean salutes with a grin and tells him, “yes, Commander,” as he watches the carriage leave the compound.

Levi had hated any kind of meeting with politicians that were done over food. He thought it was a waste of good food and good cooking, and he resented Erwin whenever he acquiesced to a private meeting with investors in some restaurant or someone else’s house. It takes him a while to convince him. The good thing about Levi trusting him is that he only has to ask him twice.

There were lots of things that Levi didn’t like, Erwin muses as he sat in the carriage. Wasting food was one of them. A callous disregard for suffering was another. Those were the good things about his captain that people who served him saw and admired and emulated, and it would do him good to remind himself of those things before he met with Nile. He has no ill-will against Nile’s decisions for not staying in the Corps, he has no use for resentment in his case now, or any other time, but it’s not difficult to fall into that trap of actively resenting anyone who was not on the same side of the fence as he was. He was only human. Levi once told him that it was a ridiculous idea to ponder on his mistakes if his only aim was to consistently question his goals and not in any way to examine his faults and use them as ruthlessly as he would any other thing in this world to survive. He recalls Hange saying something to him similarly, but in plainer terms. Mike probably pointed that out to him earlier than they have. The circle of his friends keeps getting smaller as the world changes day by day, and while it’s difficult to imagine what his death would be like, it’s a lot easier to think how life would move on once he was replaced.

Mary greets him as he arrives in their gates, with her daughters in tow. “it’s so wonderful to see you, Erwin. Oh, but I heard from Nile -- i’m sorry for your loss.”

"it’s no more of a loss to me than it is to us, really -- but let’s not discuss politics in front of my nieces."

"Erwin Smith, not working? Can’t believe I’d see the day."

He smiles at her. He was once in love with her, Erwin remembers as they make their way inside the house, but that was a lifetime ago, one that was unclouded by grief or anything else. It was difficult not to resent Nile, but sometimes -- he takes his niece’s hands in his own and greets them while Mary gently reminds him of their ages -- sometimes, it was also a lot easier to see why he had chosen to live life the way he had, and for that, Erwin can respect him.

"Uncle Erwin, did you bring any presents?" Angela was twelve, and had Nile’s temper. Eugenie was ten, and she had her mother’s eyes. "I have chocolates," Erwin replies. "And not much else. Sorry, girls."

"Being the Survey Corps doesn’t really make you rich, huh," Angela tells him, and he laughs. "No. It’s a bad career choice, really, I don’t think your father would be too happy if you even considered it."

"Angela’s planning to be a doctor," Eugenie tells him. "And I want to be a teacher."

"That’s wonderful," Erwin tells them sincerely. "But you both need to study. It wouldn’t do if you got your father’s marks at school …."

"Hey, I passed my classes," Nile says indignantly as he meets them in the dining room.

"You copied from me, if I recalled …."

"No I didn’t. Besides, you wouldn’t let me. Alright, kids, set the table, leave your uncle. Shoo. Go."

He did not have many regrets as a man, and there were days when he felt like he could be easily crushed by the world he bore on his shoulders, but there is a way to lessen those burdens, there is a way to make grief run its course and spread thin across his mind, a web that entangles memories and hurts nothing else and does no more: friends, family, being adopted into this warmth was a consolation than anything else, and is worth dying for, above anything else.

Nile corners him after lunch, outside of the house where they’re smoking again (and Erwin tunes out the voice of Levi in his head, disappointed, annoyed). “How’re you holding up?” he asks him seriously, quiet enough not to attract the girls’ attention. He glances across to Mary from the window in the living room, and Mary, perceptive as always, nods and sits with the girls and watches them.

"I’m fine." he slips a hand in his pocket and smiles. "With the way everyone’s been asking about me, you’d think I was the one who died."

"Don’t make jokes like that," Nile tells him seriously. "The MP’s moving against you. They’re not happy about your article -- among other things. With Levi gone, we have a greater chance of striking you down."

"is that what they told you?"

"That’s what they allowed me to hear. Erwin, be careful. I’m serious, man." And, for a moment, Nile was afraid.

Erwin grips his shoulder.

"The Survey Corps is used to working with desperate odds, their Commander included," he says wryly. "I won’t lie -- I may not make it out of this war. I don’t foresee myself doing that. But you shouldn’t take that as any form of surrender. You’ll find that we’re a lot more difficult to kill than a sixty metre titan come barreling through your door."

They were quiet after that, until Nile asks, “who’s next after you anyway? Hange?”

"Hange, yes."

"God. You’re gonna be even more of a pain in the ass when you’re dead, huh?"

Erwin laughs.

"What can I say, Nile. Survival’s in our blood. If you think things were bad now that Levi’s dead, just wait til Hange becomes Commander. Then you’ll know what tenacity means."

"Goddamn." He flicks the ashes of his cigarettes away. "Hey, you know -- during the funeral -- I was surprised you didn’t cry."

Erwin raises an eyebrow at him. “I wasn’t aware there was a rule about crying in funerals.”

"C’mon. I meant -- out of all the people -- "

"I know -- "

"You’re close to him, aren’t you?"

_Close._ What is closeness, really? Erwin was a Commander, he sent Levi and his friends who might as well be the only family he knows in this world, every day, into their deaths, and yet: he comes back to him, every time, unscathed, alive, whole, except this one moment where he had been snuffed from the battle like a flame in the storm. He doesn’t begrudge Nile for not understanding and for being clumsy with his words, but there’s an odd smile on his face that approximates a gash against the skin before he replies, “I suppose I was,” rather dryly. “And yet I didn’t feel the need to cry. Hange tells me I should grieve. Most of all -- I just want to return to my work. Do you think that’s unreasonable?”

"Well, I guess it can be a bit selfish. Wouldn’t hurt for the Commander to be vulnerable for his -- I don’t know, best friend -- "

"His _best friend_ ,” Erwin repeats, laughing.

”- whatever the hell you wanna call yourself to him -- just to, you know, grieve?”

He smokes his cigarette down the filter and crushes it underfoot.

"My grief is personal," he replies calmly. "It’s nobody’s business how I wish to be vulnerable in my own time."

Nile doesn’t question him after that, but offers him another stick, which he politely declines. He can only disappoint so many ghosts in a small amount of time. He appreciates the gesture, however. It feels good to be away, to just talk candidly about life and death and everything else before being drawn into the gyre. Everything falls into place, eventually; even ghosts, even men.

 

*

 

He figures he has done enough grieving, although during the course of the day the smallest things remind him that he has lost his brightest, and the memory sticks into his mind, every last reminder like a needle piercing the underside of his fingernails. Hange tells him, “nobody knows how our minds work yet, Erwin. Sometimes things just keep coming back to us every time we’re reminded of what we lost …. It’s not a comment on who you are.”

"I know that." he rakes his fingers through his hair. It’s late in the evening, he had spent dinner drinking with her. "It’s just -- horribly inconvenient at best."

"Haha, really? Poor Erwin Smith, with his friends gone and his feet shackled to the walls, and the most inconvenient thing for him is the fact that you can't stop feeling pain. Try telling Levi he’s inconvenient, go on."

"He’s dead. If I said it to his face it wouldn’t matter now." But Erwin pours her glass another round of gin, anyway, as he would have if all four or five of them were here like before. "Besides, he’ll just find a way to insult my bowels."

"Ah, that Levi. A true poet of our time! I can’t believe you fell in love with someone who looks like a squat toad with a fascination for toilet jokes."

"Well, they do say love is blind …."

"Don’t you start, Erwin Smith."

"You sound like my father, calling me by my full name. And all I ever wanted was to express my grief in healthier tones." He reaches to the side of his desk, opens a drawer to take out a pack of cards. "Let’s grieve."

"Why not."

He’s not drunk enough to lose yet, Erwin Smith, in any form of competition, drunk or not, always hates losing to anyone, especially to someone he considers to be his equal. But it's way too early to tell. Hange shuffles the cards, deals for the both of them. “Did Nile say anything?”

"He says he welcomes your promotion with dread and fear."

"Hah!"

"He also called Levi my best friend, so."

"Oh come on. You’d think Nile was never in our class."

"He told me I should be worried."

"That’s nothing new."

Erwin smiles as he takes a sip of his gin. “He tells me that the whole world is waiting to see my tears.”

"That’s a bit ambitious, don’t you think?"

Levi should be dealing the cards beside him. As it stands, he cuts the deck for Hange, and she deals for three instead of two. He can’t say that he’s surprised, but he stands up and sets an extra glass on the side and fills it to the brim.

"I think it’d be a waste of fluids, personally."

"And here I was, worried that you might have been storing too much shit up in your ass before waiting to expel them at the right time -- "

Erwin shakes his head. “What would I do without you.”

"Too early in the evening to consider that, Commander." Hange takes a drink again. "C'mon, we're supposed to be grieving. Do your worst."

He wins three games out of seven, where Hange devotes the rest of the time interrogating him about his life behind closed doors (‘personal life’ doesn’t really exist with Hange around, but she was ecstatic, telling Erwin things like, “now that Levi’s not here to tell me to shut up, tell me how he likes to get fucked!” while Erwin groaned and shoved her from the side of the table from peeking at Levi’s cards) and Erwin sidestepping them as eloquently as he can while progressively getting drunker. The rest of the night was spent in a drunken stupor, and Erwin vaguely recalls someone -- likely Moblit or Hange, he doesn’t know at this point -- dragging him to his room and throwing him to his bed. He had not felt any better. The gin, and the talking, had only made him feel ill, and in the middle of the night he had woken up and dragged himself to the toilet where he puked over the bowl with the kind of desperation, in which he can easily visualize his guts sliding down the white porcelain. And yet -- Hange was there, rubbing his back and making soothing noises while Moblit offers him water. “Better out than in, Erwin,” Hange tells him sympathetically. “Not doing otherwise makes you no better than - "

He was too busy spilling his guts out to reply, but he nods. Something like a dry sob, a half-whimper, escapes from his lips, and Hange sits beside him, rubbing his back. Her voice was shaky. She might be crying again. He doesn’t know. He’s heaving onto the bowl again and accepting water from Moblit with unsteady hands. “Better out than in,” she murmurs softly. Moblit, quietly, closes the door.

 

*

 

"You puked like a cadet during graduation."

Erwin sighs. He’s nursing a headache and his entire room looks like the dungeon, with the heavy curtains drawn in and Hange is certainly too chipper to be alive in this bright morning. The bottle of gin is stored on the side, mocking him. More than half a decade of service and he has never mastered the art of drinking with, or out-drinking, his friends; perhaps that was for the better, but some days it stings. “Thank you, Hange.”

"No problem. You want your breakfast now, or later?"

"Give me the coffee. Save the rest."

"That’s our Commander." Armin comes in with a stack of documents for him to sign -- release forms for the death certificates of his soldiers -- and Moblit comes in with the coffee. "Good, good. You’re done grieving for the day. Someday it’ll come back again. But right now, we can get back to work."


End file.
